Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm just going to pick up on a line of questioning that Ms. Murray had, because I am a former long-term reservist. When I was commanding officer, I would instruct my returning troops, and we would monitor them very closely, as best we could, for signs and symptoms of mental trauma. Now, when they're on tour and away with the regular force—and some of these deployments are up to two years, as a soldier could go between his pre-deployment training, his deployment, and then his post-deployment—you're under close supervision with your battalion in the regular force.
The issue is when they come back. The system does work. We do try to stay on top of the soldiers; we do try to watch them. I've had many soldiers self-identify. That's part of the problem: soldiers don't want to self-identify, especially if they're combat arms. They don't want to admit any form of weakness. They don't want to admit that something is wrong with them. Getting them out or starting to address or notice symptoms—and that's where, if you're in a regular force battalion, your buddies see you all the time and they'll see if you're not the same, if you're doing something different, if all of a sudden there are signs and symptoms of trauma manifesting itself.
As you know, for some people it manifests immediately, and for some people it may take years to manifest. We're seeing that in the United States with the long deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and here as well now. I know we're collaborating very closely with what the U.S. does, as do our defence scientists at DRDC, who are working on this problem.
Have you worked with DRDC at all, Mr. Ferdinand?